Half Of Trans Youth In The U.S. Have Contemplated Suicide After A Year Of Nonstop Republican Attacks

The Trevor Project’s latest National Survey on LGBTQ+ Youth Mental Health found some troubling results: nearly half of the youth they surveyed considered taking their own lives in the last year. More than half of transgender and nonbinary youth considered doing so as well.

That is undoubtedly due in part, to the record number of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation being considered or enacted across the country. More than 9 out of 10 youth surveyed cited recent politics as something that negatively affected their mental health.

“You can see this as wave upon wave, just building and building, until for a lot of LGBTQ youth it just feels like it’s too much,” Sam Brinton, the vice president of Advocacy and Government Affairs at the Trevor Project, told The Hill in revealing the results this month.

According to ‘LGBTQ Nation’, the survey is the third annual collection of mental health data for thousands of LGBTQ+ youth by the Trevor Project. They received responses from nearly 35,000 LGBTQ+ youth, ranged from ages 13 to 24, across the United States. They found their “most diverse” survey pool yet, reporting that 45 percent of respondents were LGBTQ+ youth of colour, while 38 percent being transgender or nonbinary.

The survey found in one of its most vital — and painful — statistics is that 42 percent of the respondents revealed they had seriously contemplated suicide in the year before the survey. That’s a slight increase from the finding of 40 percent in 2020, and from 39 percent in 2019.

Black, Indigenous, and Latinx LGBTQ+ youth were found to have attempted suicide at a higher rate than white, Asian, or Pacific Islander LGBTQ+ youth. 12 percent of white LGBTQ+ youth and 12 percent of Asian LGBTQ+ youth tried to take their life in 2020 or 2021. 31 percent of Indigenous respondents, 21 percent of Black respondents, 21 percent of mixed heritage respondents and 18 percent of Latinx respondents attempted to as well.

As if that’s not alarming enough, 75 percent of respondents confirmed that “they had experienced discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity at least once in their lifetime.”

For LGBTQ+ youth of color, half said that they were discriminated against based on their race or ethnicity within the last year. 67 percent of Black LGBTQ+ youth and 60 percent of Asian/Pacific Islander LGBTQ+ youth reported they experienced racist discriminatory treatment.

The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly had a drastic effect on LGBTQ+ youth, many who lost access to safe spaces and freedom of expression that they have at school, educational programs, and LGBTQ+ centres.

While it is banned in several places across the United States and shown to be a false “treatment” of LGBTQ+ people, 13 percent reported that they were still subjected to conversion therapy in the last year. 83 percent of those respondents were under the age of 18 when it happened to them.

All the info is not negative, however — LGBTQ+ youth reported that their consideration of suicide drastically changed when their identities were respected, whether with the correct use of pronouns or consideration of the LGBTQ+ youth’s name, legal documents, and birth certificates.

Similarly, respondents overwhelmingly agreed that social media has both a positive and negative effect on their mental health.

“To all the lawmakers considering anti-transgender bills across the [country] — we urge you to take a hard look at this evidence and take time out of your day to actually meet with the transgender and nonbinary youth who would be harmed by your misguided proposals,” the CEO and Executive Director of the Trevor Project, Amit Paley, said about the survey’s finding.

“Affirming a young person in their gender identity is strongly associated with lower suicide risk. That’s why we should be expanding systems of support and implementing more inclusive policies, not denying trans youth access to affirming spaces and care,” he added.

Brinton, in a plea for allies to take action, said “It is exhausting to consistently be having to talk about your rights being voted on by others and so sometimes creating that moment of, ‘I’m here to listen if that’s what you want to talk about, but we can also just talk about how hard algebra was today,’ can make the difference.”

Read related myGwork articles here:

Young LGBT+ Mental Health at 'Biggest Risk Since Section 28'

Suicide Prevention and LGBTQ+ Rights Are Intrinsically Linked

Bisexual People Up To Six Times More Likely To Self-Injure

Suicide Fears On The Rise In The LGBT+ Community During Lockdown

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